Born Ellen Gould Harmon on November 26, 1827, the author and spiritual leader best known as Ellen G. White came from a modest family of little means. She and Elizabeth—her twin sister—were born to Robert and Eunice Harmon in their New England home in Gorham, Maine. They were the youngest of eight children, the oldest being 15. Their father was a farmer and a hat maker; their mother, a homemaker and former school teacher.
Though not affluent, Ellen had a happy early childhood: There was warmth and love at home; Eunice Harmon cultivated flowers, which the family appreciated. The Harmons were members of a local Methodist congregation and regularly attended services.
Shortly after her birth, the Harmon family left their rural home in Gorham, Maine, and moved about 20 miles (32 km) to the city of Portland where Robert worked as a milliner. Soon the family moved to Poland, Maine, where Robert Harmon returned to farming from 1829 to 1833. From Poland, the family moved back to Portland where Robert enjoyed more success as a milliner than a farmer. They lived there from 1834 to 1846.
Young Ellen was a diligent student in school, often called upon to read aloud the lessons to her class. At the time, her goal was to excel in studies and achieve success through education.
It was probably in 1836, that nine-year-old Ellen Harmon experienced a trauma that nearly took her life, and would drastically alter its direction. While walking home from a nearby park, Ellen and her twin sister were followed by what would today be called a bully, an older girl threatening them with a stone. Although the Harmon girls kept moving rapidly towards home, Ellen described what happened next:
"We were doing this, running towards home, but the girl was following us with a stone in her hand. I turned to see how far she was behind me, and as I turned, the stone hit me on my nose. I fell senseless. When I revived, I found myself in a merchant’s store, the blood streaming from my nose, my garments covered with blood, and a large stream of blood on the floor."—Spiritual Gifts, vol. 2, 7)
Carried home by her sister and their friend, Ellen lay in her bed in a coma for three weeks. Some days later, when her father returned home from a business trip, Ellen was crushed further—her father didn’t recognize her. “Every feature” of her face was changed. Some feared she would die, but her mother Eunice Harmon rejected the suggestion. There were, however, other consequences. The loss of blood had severely affected her respiratory system—a weakness she bore for the rest of her life. In addition, because her hand “trembled,” Ellen could make “no progress in writing.”—Spiritual Gifts, vol. 2, pp. 7-11.
Medicine in the early 19th Century was far different than many of us in the 21st Century would dream of. Anesthesia using inhaled ether wasn't announced in America until 1849, more than a decade after the attack on Ellen White.
This meant two things: First, that young Ellen's disfigurement was not easily repaired in her day, and, second, her accident and subsequent recovery caused her to be shunned by many of her young friends, leaving Ellen to find solace in the Jesus she and her family loved.
Schooling became impossible. The letters of the alphabet in her books would run together, her eyes could not focus properly, perspiration flowed, and she would become dizzy and faint. And so, at the age of nine, this bright student left her academic preparation in great disappointment, never to return to formal schooling—the first of two great disappointments in her early life. Her mother became her teacher, and the fields around Portland, her laboratory.
Nearly fifty years later, Ellen White returned to the scene of the callous crime against her, this time with a perspective expanded by time: "This misfortune, which for a time seemed so bitter and was so hard to bear, has proved to be a blessing in disguise. The cruel blow which blighted the joys of earth, was the means of turning my eyes to heaven. I might never have known Jesus, had not the sorrow that clouded my early years led me to seek comfort in him."—Review and Herald, Nov. 25, 1884, paragraph 2.
The "misfortune" that befell Ellen Harmon in 1836 prepared her for more important things than her earlier worldly focus would have provided, as we'll soon learn.
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